


Dissection

by spiritofsky



Category: Tangled: The Series (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Autistic Varian (Disney), Gen, Loss of Limbs, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Season/Series 01, Trans Varian (Disney), Trauma, Written with my headcannons in mind so uh, probably, redemption arc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-05-26 15:20:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15003719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiritofsky/pseuds/spiritofsky
Summary: Rapunzel's aim was certainly not true, hitting Varian with the rocks in their fight, leaving him with grievous injuries. With Varian left seriously injured and imprisoned, Rapunzel is filled with guilt--inspired by robot arm au Varian posts on tumblr and my own thoughts of /oh my god Rapunzel b careful what if u hit him/ while watching secret of the sundrop this was the obvious conclusion i came to..enjoy ;)





	1. relay neurons

A million thoughts raced through Varian’s head, eclectic and chaotic and frantic and oh so disorganised. He had to keep pushing on, he couldn’t give up, he could still win yet, but Rapunzel was somehow controlling the black rocks and _no it wasn’t magic - magic isn’t real._ His mecha automaton had been knocked over by the force of the explosion of energy and he had lost his hostages, but he hadn’t lost control of the mech and he sure as hell hadn’t lost his iron resolve.

He had to carry on. He had to make them pay. He had to make his father proud.

With a cry of effort, pushing through the pain of his aching muscles, Varian slammed the gearsticks forwards with far much more force than what was necessary. The air inside the automaton was hot and heavy and stifling, he should’ve installed a better ventilation system but he didn’t have enough time and it was too late now anyway.

As Rapunzel skewered the rest of his automatons on the jagged black rocks, Varian didn’t feel fear. What he was feeling was most certainly not fear, it couldn’t be, because he wasn’t afraid, he couldn't be afraid. He was brave. He had to be brave.

It was an awful sound as Rapunzel tore his mech limb from limb, the screeching groaning of twisting metal, the force rattling the whole machine and shaking him to the bones. A screw came loose somewhere above him and ricochet off of the dashboard in front of him. He grit his teeth. The window was becoming foggy with his ragged breath - from overexertion, not panic. Definitely not panic.

The last leg came off of the automaton and he was jostled around as it span and landed with a heavy sound on the ground, kicking up dust and rock and other debris. A crack began to form in the glass of the window.

Varian’s head slammed against the dashboard, making a sound that did not sound at all healthy and most certainly leaving a quickly developing bruise. He wiped his bloody nose with the back of his gloved hand, only succeeding in smearing it all over his face rather than wiping it away.

He focused intently out of the window, his vision impaired by the fog and large crack in the glass and perhaps his vision was swimming somewhat after his head injury but he was sure his vision would return to normal soon enough.

There she was, Varian could see Rapunzel, hair glowing gold and face determined. He wanted to wipe that expression right off of it. How dare she! How dare she stand her ground and not crumble as she saw the lengths she pushed him to go to!?

The arm of his automaton reached out to grab her. A black rock shot up from the ground below and he lost connection to it. His fists hit the dashboard and he cried out in anger. He couldn't loose! Not now - _not ever!_ He had come so far…

Apparently, immobilising him wasn’t enough for Rapunzel, and Varian braced himself in the split second in which he could feel the rumble of the ground beneath him. Then there was the awful screaming sound of wrenching, twisting, tearing metal, high pitched and grating and oh so close to him.

That split second did not allow him to prepare for what happened as the large, jagged pillar of rock burst through the metal floor beneath him. Nothing could prepare him for it.

For a moment, his eyes screwed tight shut, sweat covering his body and shaking almost feverishly, Varian did not feel a thing. He didn’t feel the couple shards of glass from the broken window that nicked his skin or even the ones that became embedded within it.

He didn’t even feel his arm.

He didn’t feel as his arm was impaled by the rock, right above the elbow. He didn’t feel as the violent rattling knocked him from side to side, pulling his body further away from his arm, pinned in place by the rock stabbing through it. He didn’t feel as fragments of bone shattered in sickening cracking sounds and nauseating wet sounds as this movement pulled his arm from his body and his tendons from bone and muscle from skin.

At first, in that moment, everything was white, all he could do was shut his eyes tight and listen to the creak and rumble as his automaton settled, and the persistent ringing of his ears, and then he could smell salt and copper and some kind of sickly honey sugar sweetness and he opened his eyes _and realised it was blood that he could smell **and that was all that he could see**_ _ **c oat ing**_ _ **e v e r y t h i n g**_ _ **an d  t h en-**_

Then all that he could feel was pain.

White hot, blistering, searing pain, hotter than the boiling of his anger at Rapunzel. His whole upper arm ached, slow and dull and blunt and he couldn’t feel his lower arm at all. It hurt so much it overstimulated him and looped back so it hardly hurt at all. The adrenaline that was no doubt coursing through his veins and body in a state of shock, numbing the pain.

Nothing was processing.

It took him a second and then he screwed his eyes so tight they hurt but that couldn’t stop his tears, stinging his eyes viciously with salt, his body wracked with sobs and shaking in shock and he felt like he was going to choke as his crying and screaming stole his breath and his nose was blocked with mucus.

Varian had no idea how he hadn’t passed out yet.

There was a sound as the hatch to his control room was unlocked and he was overstimulated - it hurt, the sound hurt his ears and he went to cover them only to find that he only had one arm to do so with anymore. Then this reminded him again of the blinding pain and he just couldn’t think.  
He didn’t know what to do if he couldn’t think. Thinking was all that Varian was made of and if he didn’t have that then he didn’t have anything. He was just some ordinary kid without his mind and he had to be anything but ordinary or else he was just a failure.

Varian heard a soft gasp. Even that felt too loud. He thought he was going to throw up as he felt hands on his shoulders. He could hear voices but had no clue what they were saying. He felt a rush of air as someone swung a sword down on the last few bits of muscle and tendon holding his arm together, and then he was being pulled out of the automaton.

He opened his eyes for a moment, it took far more energy that what was in any way reasonable for the simple action.

The look on Rapunzel’s face was amazing. Shocked and pale in a sickly way that made it clear that she was almost going to be sick. Her eyes were wide and lips slightly parted and Varian could see she wanted to look away but just couldn’t tear her eyes away from the disgusting, visceral sight.

 

And that was enough of a victory for Varian, in that moment. He let out a weak laugh, mouth twisting into some semblance of a tiny smile, and then he let his body faint.


	2. maceration

Their footsteps echoed in the stone corridor as the guards led Varian through the prison. The chains of his shackles rattled. Varian kept his head down.

 

Being roughly shoved into the cold floor of the prison cell by the guards brought back memories for Varian. As his knees hit the stone, his mind didn't so much drift to childhood memories as much as it violently dragged them to the surface. 

 

Tripping and falling over, scraping and bruising his knees and elbows in his excitement to research that new kind of wildflower he saw the other day, too engrossed in another project at the time to investigate it right away. Falling to his knees in despair as he gazed up with tear filled eyes at his father encased within amber.

 

The hands of the guards on his back as they escorted him to his cell brought back their own share of memories, his father resting his hands protectively on Varian’s shoulders. The own rough shove of his childhood bullies in Old Corona - before he started staying inside most of the time, and they lost interest.

 

Varian had to stop himself from crying, he couldn’t show any weakness to the guards.

 

Still, he missed his father. 

 

He wanted to cry.

 

As the guards closed and locked the cell doors, the loud clanging sound grated on Varian’s ears. He had always found cold, metallic sounds comforting, but this just helped the reality set in, that he was a criminal, that he had been caught, that he would likely never leave the cold, dark halls of the prison.

 

At least not alive.

 

Rudiger chittered, running up onto his shoulder to settle in his favourite spot as Varian rose from the floor and sat on the sorry excuse for a bed he was provided with. Chains rattled as he moved, the shackles icy burning cold against his skin.

 

He was glad they didn’t take Rudiger away - at least not yet. Varian bit his lip at the awful thought, stroking Rudiger’s head, feeling soothed by the feeling of his fur against his fingertips, despite how wiry it felt.

 

Rudiger was the only real thing he had left. He didn’t even have his  _ arm  _ anymore.

 

The end of his arm, just below the elbow, ached in dull, slow pulses of pain. It had been covered in a gauze dressing and wrapped with cotton bandages. As far as he was told, it had been done five times over by now, having to have them replaced when they soaked through with blood. This time, it was just stained, rather than dripping with a seemingly endless stream of blood. They told him that he could always shout though, if he needed the bandages changed. The thought of losing any more blood made him feel sick.

 

He had been given clean clothing, his old clothes completely stained with blood, and even then they were tattered, from chemical burns on the hem of his shirt to patches sewn over places that caught on fire after explosions and the occasional tear from a jagged piece of broken glass or the edge of a sheet of metal. Varian had, rather embarrassingly, near begged (perhaps you could scrap the ‘near’) to be able to keep his apron and goggles, familiar sources of comfort. They must have taken pity on him, because they allowed him to keep them, after emptying the pockets and thoroughly checking for any kind of hidden pockets. He had been given his goggles back, but his apron had to dry out after being washed clean of blood.

 

Varian was rather grateful to not have to see more of his blood than necessary.

 

They didn’t really know what to do with him, the prison not really suitable for someone recovering from a serious injury, (or a child for that matter) and the medical wards wouldn’t take a criminal, much less someone with as many serious offences as Varian, hell, even ‘serious offence’ was probably a stretch, ‘offences against the Crown’ would be more apt. 

 

He thought of them in his head: high treason, resisting arrest, physical assault, death threats, attempted murder, attempted assassination, theft, grand larceny, espionage, criminal damage, terrorism, kidnapping, hostage taking, whatever ‘drugging the entire royal staff’ would be considered, and would him bringing the drugged cookies into Corona be considered smuggling? He added juvenile delinquency to his mental list with a weak laugh at how tame it was in comparison.

 

They told Varian they were working on a solution.

 

Varian told himself they were just going to let him get an infection and die in his cell.

 

He looked down at his remaining hand, glad it was at least his non dominant hand that he lost. There was dried blood underneath his fingernails, a couple scrapes on his wrist from when his automaton was destroyed. He already had calluses on his fingers from woodwork and long hours of sketching up schematics. He could barely see any unmarred skin between the chemical burn scars and a few thin scars from the sharp edges of metal sheets. Of course the one from that time he accidently drove a screwdriver through his hand- Maybe he a little clumsy… maybe was more than a little.

 

Varian winced as a sharp pain jolted down the length of his partially missing arm. He instinctively went to cover the end of his arm, but quickly pulled his hand away as the contact made his wound hurt even more.

 

Ruddiger chirruped by his side, rubbing against his side like a cat. Varian smiled and stroked his head, focusing on just the feeling of his fur under his fingers, hoping that he could distract himself.


End file.
